The Unquiet Dead (15 page)

“That was Laine Stoicheva, total and utter bitch,” Audrey said. “Pay no attention to anything she says. She lives for trouble. Eats and drinks it too, I think.”

Laine Stoicheva. The last partner Khattak had worked with before Rachel herself. She'd heard the stories. Heard the truth from Khattak himself, yet the woman in person was like an undefused bomb. She oozed sex. And as Rachel could see from the lapdog expression of every man around them, she wasn't accustomed to rejection.

Khattak's account of Laine Stoicheva's demotion had included no mention of Nathan Clare. Laine had divided her attention between both men.

“I should get home,” Rachel said to the others. “It's a long drive.”

“I didn't know she'd be here,” Nate said to his sister. “How could I have known?”

“He'll calm down. He'll realize that's the case.”

“He won't,” Nate said bitterly. “That's only the second time in two years that he's spoken to me.”

Rachel looked from brother to sister, feeling decidedly
de trop
. She murmured a good night and slipped away to her car, caught by an icy blast of rain.

It was a relief to breathe the rain-drenched air, to feel its spiraling wetness against her cheeks. She slid into the driver's side and started the engine.

It choked.

She tried again, her eyes searching for Khattak's BMW.

It was gone. Why did the man have to appear and disappear so quickly? She'd have sworn he was a magician. She let loose a fluent string of curses. Now, she'd have to call in a tow truck for a boost, and she'd still be sitting here when Laine Stoicheva and the Clares eventually found their way to the lot. They'd see her because she'd been stupid enough to park near the door with plenty of lighting. Rain had been her only worry then. Balanced against potential humiliation, it seemed a small price to pay.

She scrabbled in her purse for her phone. Maybe her Da would come.

She choked back a laugh. Not tonight or any night. Her Da wasn't in the business of rescuing damsels in distress. Just like with Zach. Dead or alive, it was the same thing. Why worry about Rachel driving home at midnight? She was a police officer, not a teenage girl. Except that when she'd been a teenage girl, no one had worried either.

Keep the boat afloat. Keep everything the same. Nobody speak. Everyone survives.

There was sharp knock at her window.

She rolled it down: Nathan Clare stood there, dripping with rain. Like her, he hadn't had the sense to bring an umbrella. “Let me give you a lift.”

“I can't leave my car here overnight.”

“You can. I'll settle it so that it's ready for you in the morning. Now, where can I drop you?”

“What about Audrey?” she asked him, not seeing his sister.

“She's met a friend who will drop her. Get your things while I call.”

Common sense told her to refuse. Her personal sense of awkwardness insisted on it.

But there was Nathan Clare, soaking wet and miserable, not budging from her window as he made his calls.

“You'll catch cold,” she said ungraciously. “Let me get my bag from the trunk.”

The thought of someone else driving through the city to Etobicoke in the rain imbued her with bliss. Not having to worry about her car or fix the problem herself—well, this was the first time someone had stepped in for her. The first time anyone had seemed anxious about her feelings.

The scene in the pub had been insulting and confusing, but Rachel was used to both. What she wasn't used to was the generous offer of help and comfort. She found herself stretching out her legs in the luxurious interior of an Aston Martin, watching traffic lights swing past rain-darkened streets in long green streaks.

Nate glanced over at her, his hands tight on the steering wheel. “I think I owe you an explanation.”

“Honestly, you don't. Inspector Khattak told me about the charges Laine manufactured against him, I'd just never met her. I can see why she was a problem.”

“That's all he told you?”

“That's all that mattered to our job. He doesn't owe me anything else.”

Nate brushed his gold hair to one side. His fingers came away damp. “I wonder why you think that, Rachel. Esa speaks very highly of you to Ruksh. It sounds to me as though he considers you a friend.”

Rachel flushed with embarrassment at the thought of herself as the subject of such personal discussion. The suggestion that Khattak might share the quiet regard she felt for him was unsettling. She cleared her throat. “He's also my boss. And I want to do well with him.”

“I think you have done. Audrey tells me as much. He has a strong sense of what's right.”

And though she hadn't wanted to be drawn into this conversation, Rachel asked, “Then why haven't you spoken in two years?”

Nate kept his attention firmly on the road. “It doesn't mean he's not stubborn. He's stubborn and judgmental as hell. If he thinks his trust has been betrayed, there's no convincing him otherwise. When he brought you to Winterglass, I thought he might be thawing. He wouldn't have brought you, I thought, if he didn't want me to meet you. To let him know what I thought of this woman who figures so largely in his life.”

Rachel flushed red. “I'm not—we're not—we work together. We came here because of Christopher Drayton.”

“I think that was an excuse for Esa to reach out. You must have seen that he's asked me hardly anything about Drayton. Or Mink, for that matter. When Esa is interested in a woman, he tends to go quiet.”

Rachel wanted to ask if there had been many—there had to be something behind the reputation he sustained at work, even if she hadn't seen it herself—but it didn't seem appropriate. And she wondered if Nate was right. Had Khattak wanted to reach out to a friend he had somehow lost along the way? Had he needed her presence as a shield? All the things they should have been doing to confirm Drayton's identity had been delayed. He hadn't called her for a week, and then only to visit an imam unconnected with the case.

“Were you both in love with her?”

Drayton,
she cursed herself.
You should be asking about Drayton.

“No.” His sudden awkwardness appealed to Rachel, if only because she identified with it so thoroughly. “Audrey said she would tell you, but she tends to dramatize things. The truth is theatrical enough.”

“Two friends fighting over a woman who plays them off against each other?”

A faint color rose in Nathan's face, softening its incipient lines. “I—these are good guesses but they're off the mark. Esa was never interested in Laine. She was his colleague at INSET. She may not seem like it, but she has an excellent brain and a knack for intelligence work. It was a good partnership, but she wanted more, which was something I didn't know. He should have told me about the trouble she was causing him, but he's somewhat conservative in these matters. I suppose he thought he was being gentlemanly. I'd come by several times to meet Esa after work, and I noticed Laine.” He shrugged helplessly. “Who wouldn't? What stunned me was that a woman like that noticed
me
. She was interested in me. She didn't have to try all that hard. One look at her and I was besotted.” He smiled at the old-fashioned word. “I planned to marry her, and then she brought her claim against Esa.”

“That must have been the end of things,” Rachel said, in as neutral a tone as she could manage.

“You would think so. You would think I'd know Esa better than anyone—or that I'd learned to trust him in thirty years.” He glanced over at her. “Laine was an obsession with me. I couldn't think or sleep for wanting her. I would have done anything she asked. In the end, I did.”

“I don't understand.” From the wretched expression on his face, she had the feeling that she didn't really want to know.

“Laine asked me to testify on her behalf at a closed hearing. Against Esa. And I did. That's why he hasn't seen me in two years. That's why I wrote
Apologia
.”

Rachel clasped her hands together. Her fingers felt numb.

“He was cleared,” she said weakly. “And you never married Laine. He must have forgiven you.”

“When he brought you to meet me, I hoped as much. He tried to warn me once, but when I wouldn't hear it, he didn't say another word against her. In your case, there's no reticence. When he brought you to Winterglass, I knew something had changed. And then Laine tonight—let's just say, she destroys everything she touches.”

Rachel considered this in silence. She barely knew Nathan Clare, really only knew him through the veneer of his public persona as writer and commentator, yet she felt that she owed him whatever she could bring to bear. Perhaps that was kindness. “It can't be as bad as you're imagining. He came tonight. By the morning, he'll know that Laine's being there wasn't your fault. He just needs time to think.”

“That's the most dangerous time, when he's thinking.” His smile was brief. “Read
Apologia
. Then you'll know what I did.”

*   *   *

On the day of the hearing, Nate had been the last to leave the room. He had shaken Laine's touch from his body but why,
why
had Esa not told him? He had the answer a moment later, agonizing in all it revealed of himself: he shouldn't have had to.

They had known each other since they were seven years old. They had weathered every storm, shared every confidence, loved each other's families, loved each other.

Known
each other.

And Laine Stoicheva had detonated a grenade within the stronghold of their friendship.

Esa had left without a word, without a glance. That had been two years ago, and even
Apologia
had made no difference.

On the night he'd driven to Esa's house to stumble through whatever apology he could try to make to rescue the only friendship that mattered in his life, Esa had said simply, “I thought if there was anyone in the world who would know what I'm capable of, it would be you. It can never be the same now.”

“
Rahem
,” Nate had dredged out of nowhere. The plea to recognize the Islamic concept of life-giving mercy. He knew there were a lot of things Esa could have said in response—don't you dare drag faith into this now when you've betrayed it so utterly—but what he said with a look of regret was, “I could never wish you ill, Nate.”

And the door had closed.

On thirty years of friendship, it had closed.

It hadn't opened again, even when he'd written his dedication:
To EK, whose friendship I valued too little, too late.

 

15.

While the Serb soldier was dragging my son away, I heard his voice for the last time. And he turned around and then he told me, “Mummy please, can you get that bag for me? Could you please get it for me?”

With no word from Khattak and no clear direction on what to pursue next, Rachel's instincts told her to revisit Melanie Blessant. She had called Khattak and been unable to reach him. She had tried the Blessant house with the same result. And the days until Zach's exhibit were passing, not in suspended animation, but with a concentrated intensity, every hope and whisper magnified until her head began to ache from the pressure of her thoughts.

It was a relief to knock on Melanie Blessant's door, despite her awareness that as poorly tended as the house was, it was still more presentable than her own. A wan light seeped through the canopy of maples that bordered the walk, a reflection of the diminishing day, a reminder that as swiftly as time passed, it offered no reprieve from her restlessness. She didn't know if that long-anticipated moment of reunion with her brother was a source of creeping dread or solace.

No one answered the doorbell or her more insistent knock. Whatever she had tried to make of it, this was a dead end, a lost afternoon. There were no games on the schedule, no extra time she wanted to spend at home with her parents, no diligent partner to be found pursuing his own leads. She returned to her car and rolled the windows down, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. It was one of those rare afternoons free of the rain that had made the fall so miserable, and yet her expectations made her wretched.

The sound of a car pulling up interrupted her thoughts. A luxury vehicle slowed in front of her Neon to park in Melanie's driveway, flattening the weeds that sprang from cracks in the stone. Rachel recognized the passengers as Hadley and Cassidy Blessant. The man who stepped out to open Cassidy's door resembled them so closely, he could only be their father.

“I'm sorry girls. I think it's better if I don't come in.”

There were signs of tension in his otherwise pleasant face as he squeezed his daughter's hand.

“Daddy, you promised!”

From where she was parked, Rachel could hear the longing in Cassidy's voice, could hear them all, an unforeseen opportunity.

“Don't be a baby, Cass.” Hadley unbuckled her seat belt, her manner brisk. “You know what'll happen if Mel has to deal with him.”

She grabbed her bag and took a moment to glare at her sister in the backseat. “Come on, get out.” The smile she turned on her father was unexpected. So expressive of warmth and trust and utterly unlike the front she had presented to Rachel and Khattak earlier.

“You know we love you, Dad. Don't believe anything the Grand Narcissist tries to tell you.”

One of her nicknames for her mother, Rachel guessed, more in keeping with what she'd perceived as the girl's sardonic nature. Her father tried to hold back a smile and failed.

“I wish I didn't have to leave you here. I thought this would all be over once your mother married Drayton.”

“What would be over, Dad?”

Hadley answered her sister, her voice tart and impatient. “The child support. The spousal support. The never-ending demands. The custody battle, Cass. Mel didn't want us once she had Chris. We could have gone back to Dad once and for all.”